This Day in History
In Alaska
• In 1905, Lester D. Bronson, who served in the Alaska Legislature from Nome, was born in California.
• In 1946, the Auke Bay post office north of Juneau officially opened for business.
• In 1964, nine employees of the Alaska Communication System were awarded the "Declaration of Exceptional Service" by the Secretary of the Air Force.
In the nation
• In 1783, George Washington resigned as commander-in-chief of the Army and retired to his home at Mount Vernon, Va.
• In 1823, the poem, "A Visit from St. Nicholas" by Clement C. Moore was published in the Troy (New York) Sentinel.
• In 1928, the National Broadcasting Company set up a permanent coast-to-coast network.
• In 1986, the experimental airplane Voyager, piloted by Dick Rutan and Jeana Yeager, completed the first non-stop, non-refueled, round-the-world flight as it landed safely at Edwards Air Force Base in California.
• In 1987, Lynette "Squeaky" Fromme, serving a life sentence for the attempted assassination of President Ford in 1975, escaped from the Alderson Federal Prison for Women in West Virginia. (She was recaptured two days later.)
• In 1993, President Clinton, under intense political pressure, instructed his attorney to give the Justice Department all records of his investment in an Arkansas real estate partnership linked to a failed savings and loan.
• In 1997, a jury in Denver convicted Terry Nichols of involuntary manslaughter and conspiracy for his role in the Oklahoma City bombing, declining to find him guilty of murder.
• In 2002, Senate Republicans unanimously elected Bill Frist to succeed Trent Lott as their leader in the next Congress.
In the world
• In 1893, the Engelbert Humperdinck opera "Hansel und Gretel" was first performed, in Weimar, Germany.
• In 1941, during World War II, American forces on Wake Island surrendered to the Japanese.
• In 1948, former Japanese premier Hideki Tojo and six other Japanese war leaders were executed in Tokyo.
• In 1968, 82 crew members of the U.S. intelligence ship Pueblo were released by North Korea, 11 months after they had been captured.
• In 1998, Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat freed Hamas spiritual leader Sheik Ahmed Yassin from house arrest, a move denounced by Israel. Lebanese guerrillas attacked Israel's northern border with rockets, in retaliation for an Israeli air raid a day earlier.
• In 2002, a passenger plane crashed in central Iran during a flight from Turkey, killing 45 people, mostly from Ukraine.